The Unhallowed Harvest

By HOMER GREENE Author of “The Lincoln Conscript,” “Pickett’s Gap,” etc.

PHILADELPHIA GEORGE W. JACOBS & COMPANY PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1917, by George W. Jacobs & Company

Published March, 1917

All rights reserved

Printed in U. S. A.

CHAPTER I AN ENFORCED VERDICT

The Reverend Robert Bruce Farrar entered the Common Pleas court-room and made his way down the center aisle to the railing that enclosed the space allotted to members of the bar. Had he been an ordinary citizen he would have stopped there. But he was not an ordinary citizen. Therefore he passed on into the railed enclosure to find his seat. He was rector of Christ Church; the oldest, wealthiest and most prominent religious organization in the city. Yet that fact alone would not have given him the distinction he enjoyed in this community. He was also an eloquent preacher, a profound scholar, a man of attractive and vigorous personality. Apparently he was not lacking in any of the qualities that make for success in the administration of the affairs of a large city parish. He had been rector of Christ Church for two years, and his worth and ability had been, during that time, abundantly proven. Moreover, by reason of his genial and sympathetic nature, he had endeared himself to the people of the parish, especially to the more humble members of his flock. He had, as the saying is, “a

passion for humanity.” To those who toiled, who were in trouble or affliction, his heart went out in unaffected sympathy. He gave of his best to encourage, comfort[8] and relieve them. Indeed, the only criticism made concerning him—and that was a suggestion rather than a criticism—was that possibly he neglected the souls of the rich to care for the bodies of the poor. He was deeply interested in problems of social ethics and economy, in fact in all problems having to do with the general welfare. He was a student of human character in all of its phases and manifestations. This it was, doubtless, that led him into becoming a frequenter of the courts. It was for this reason that the trial of causes had for him a strong and unfailing attraction. He was fond of looking on at the visible working of the machinery of the law. For there are few public places where human motives, as disclosed by human conduct, are brought more frequently and startlingly to the surface than in the court-room. It was a place, therefore, where the reverend gentleman was not only

a frequent, but also a welcome visitor. He had a standing invitation to enter the bar enclosure, and to occupy a chair among his friends the lawyers. There had been occasions, indeed, occasions of great public interest, when the presiding judge, who chanced to be his senior warden, had had his rector up to sit beside him on the bench. But the case on trial this day was not an unusual one. It had attracted no particular attention, either among lawyers or laymen. Yet the rector of Christ Church was deeply interested in it. He had attended, so far as he had been able to do so, the sessions of the court in which it was being heard. It was what is known among lawyers as a negligence case. A workman, employed by a large manufacturing concern, had been seriously and permanently injured while engaged in the performance of the duties of his employment. An elevator on which he was riding, while making his way from one part of the factory to another, had suddenly gone wrong, and had plunged down through five stories, to become a heap of wreckage at the bottom of the shaft. And out from among[9]

the mass of splintered wood and broken and twisted iron and steel, he had been drawn, scarcely less broken and twisted and crushed than the inanimate things among which he had lain. An action had been brought, in his name, against the employing company, to compel it to compensate him for his injuries. This was the second day of the trial. It was late in the afternoon, and the case was drawing to a close. When the rector of Christ Church entered the court-room, Philip Westgate, for the defense, was making his closing argument to the jury. With relentless logic he was tearing down the structure which the experienced and skillful attorney for the plaintiff had built up. Although one of the younger members of a brilliant bar, it was freely predicted that the day was not far distant when he would be its leader. This thought lay distinctly in the mind of Richard Malleson, president of the defendant company, as he sat at the counsel’s table, and followed, with keen interest and satisfaction, the course of the argument.

He was not so witless as to believe that the jury would find in favor of his company, in view of the strong human appeal that had been made to them, and still would be made to them, on behalf of the plaintiff; yet his countenance expressed no anxiety, for his lawyer had assured him that, regardless of any adverse verdict, the case fell within a rule of law that would prevent a recovery. So, fair type of the prosperous business man, portly, well-dressed, shrewd-eyed, square-jawed, he sat contentedly and listened while Westgate whittled away his opponent’s case.

The plaintiff also was in court, sitting near by. But whether or not he understood what the learned counsel for the defense was saying, whether or not he heard his voice at all, no one, looking into his face, would have been able to discover. He sat there in a wheel-chair, a plaid robe covering his palsied and misshapen legs, his chin resting heavily on the broad scarf that covered his[10] breast, his dull, gray face showing neither anxiety nor interest as Westgate made havoc of the evidence on which his case was built. To all outward appearance, though his whole economic future was at stake, he neither knew nor cared what was going on about him. For two days the rector of Christ Church had watched him as he sat there, listless, motionless, looking neither to the right nor left, apparently as unconcerned as though it were a stranger’s fate with which learned counsel were playing battledore and shuttlecock across the traverse jury box.

But if the plaintiff was indifferent, his wife, who sat by him, was not. She at least was alive and alert. Nothing escaped her observation and consideration; no point presented by counsel, no ruling made by the court, no statement given by witnesses, no expression on the faces of jurors, as evidence and argument fell upon their ears and sank into their presumably plastic minds. She was, apparently, still in her early thirties. She was neatly and cheaply clad, as became a workingman’s wife. Her figure was well-proportioned and supple, and her oval face, lighted with expressive and intelligent dark eyes, was strikingly handsome. She was following Westgate’s argument with intense but scornful interest. That she appreciated its strength and its brilliance was apparent; but it was also apparent that she was not in the least dismayed. To the clergyman, student of human character and emotions, her countenance presented a greater attraction than the attraction offered by eloquent counsel. He looked at her, wondered at her, sympathized with her.

Nor was the rector the only person in the room whose attention had been drawn to the woman’s face rather than to the eloquence of the speaking lawyer. At the clergyman’s side sat Barry Malleson, son of the president of the defendant company. He, also, had been in constant attendance at the trial. Not that his presence was necessary there; but, holding a nominally[11] important, if not vitally necessary, position with the defendant company, he felt, as he expressed it, that he should be present to hearten up counsel in the case, and to give moral encouragement and protection to his father on whom a heavy verdict might fall with peculiar severity. With one hand ungloved, toying with his cane, he had sat and listened, with apparently deep interest, to Westgate’s speech. But whether the lawyer’s eloquence or the face of the plaintiff’s wife was the greater attraction, it would have been difficult to discover. For, while his ears appeared to be attuned to the one, his eyes were certainly fixed upon the other, and his gaze was one of distinct admiration.

When Westgate concluded his address and took his seat, Barry turned to the rector and whispered:

“Great speech, that of Phil’s, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” replied the rector. “From the standpoint of clear logic it was faultless.”

“Too bad he couldn’t have had twelve men with brains and education to take it in. Trying a case before an ordinary jury is more or less of a farce. Really, you know, the law ought to be so changed that only men of unusual intelligence, men with property interests of their own, could sit on a jury.”

The rector smiled. He was well aware of Barry’s undemocratic tendencies, and he knew just as well that to argue the point with him would be quite futile. Nevertheless, he said:

“Oh, I don’t know! It seems to me that heart and conscience should count for something in the jury box.”

“Ah,” replied Barry, “there’s your mistake. Cases should be decided according to law and logic, not according to sentiment. Take this case, now. Here’s a devilish—I beg your pardon!—an extraordinarily handsome woman, of the same general social class as most of the jurors. Plaintiff’s wife, you know. She goes to the stand and tells a moving tale of hardship and suffering. Sits there and turns eloquent eyes from[12] counsel to witness and from witness to jury. Beauty in distress! Stalwart manhood in ruins! How are brains and logic going to win out against such a combination, before a jury made up of clerks and workingmen?”

“So far as my observation has gone,” replied the rector, “I’m inclined to think the ordinary jury deals out pretty even-handed justice.”

“Not when there’s a handsome woman in the case. Look at her now! By Jupiter! she’s a beauty!”

Barry’s enthusiasm was not unfounded, the plaintiff’s wife was in animated conversation with her lawyer during the brief interval preceding his address. Evidently she was pointing out to him some mistake in Westgate’s declarations, or fallacy in his logic. The jurors, the lawyers, the spectators in the court-room, were watching her, no less than were Barry Malleson and the Reverend Mr. Farrar. She was worth watching.

“Crude and uncultured, of course,” added Barry. “But, take such a face and figure as that, plus clothes and social training—she is already reputed to have brains,—and you would have a social queen. Gad!”

He turned his eyes away, as if to rest them for a moment on some less fascinating object. The clergyman did not seem to consider that his companion’s remarks called for any reply from him. People who knew Barry as well as Mr. Farrar did seldom took him very seriously.

The attorney for the plaintiff rose to make the concluding address to the jury. He had not the logical grasp of the case that his opponent had displayed, but he was more plausibly eloquent. He appealed more to the sympathies of the jurors than to their reason. He grew fierce in his denunciation of the greed and heartlessness of corporations in general, and of this corporation in particular. He became dramatic in his vivid description of the accident, and tearfully pathetic in depicting the future that lay before this man with the[13] crushed body and the clouded mind. He called upon the jurors, as men of intelligence and conscience, to look to it that domineering wealth should not escape its just obligations to one whom it had carelessly crippled and cast aside; on whose home rested to-day the dark shadows of unspeakable pain and distressing poverty.

At the conclusion of his address many men in the court-room, including some of the jurors, wiped furtive tears from their eyes, and all of the women were openly weeping; all save one, the wife of the plaintiff. She did not weep. Her glowing dark eyes were tearless and triumphant. She looked into the sympathetic faces of the jurors and read their verdict there before they, themselves, had considered it. She knew that her long fight for justice on behalf of her crippled husband and herself was approaching its victorious end. Why should she weep?

Then Judge Bosworth began his charge to the jury. He gave a brief history of the case. He dwelt upon some of its more important phases as revealed by the evidence. He laid down the general rules of law governing this class of cases. He passed upon the requests of counsel for instruction to the jury. He said finally:

“Counsel for the defendant company has asked us to charge you that ‘under all the evidence in the case the verdict of the jury must be for the defendant.’ This is correct, and we so charge you; and, in doing so, we say that, except in the case of a common carrier, the uniform rule is that when recovery is sought on the ground of negligence of the defendant, the burden of proof is on the plaintiff, and in an action against an employer some specific act of negligence must be shown. No defect of any kind was shown in the elevator, nor was there any evidence which would justify a finding that it was unsafe for employees to use. Its falling was not shown to have been due to the breach of any duty owed by the employer to his employees. With[14] the friction brake on it the engineer could have controlled it, and the only rational conclusion is that, instead of doing so, he carelessly let it drop with resultant consequences to this plaintiff which are not to be visited on the employer. This is one of those regrettable industrial accidents for which, in the present state of

our laws, there appears to be no remedy in the way of compensation for injuries received.

“While the plaintiff is not charged with any contributory negligence, and while he has our undoubted sympathy, we cannot permit him to recover against a party that clearly has not been at fault. You will, therefore, in the case of John Bradley against the Malleson Manufacturing Company, render a verdict in favor of the defendant. It will not be necessary for you to leave the box. Mr. Gaylord,” to the prothonotary of the court, “you will please take the verdict of the jury.”

But before the prothonotary could get to his feet, Juror No. 7, sitting first in the front row, arose and addressed the court.

“Do I understand your Honor to say,” he inquired, “that the jury has no right to decide whether or not Mr. Bradley is entitled to damages?”

“No right whatever,” replied the judge. “In this case the law governs that question, and the law is exclusively for the court.”

“But,” persisted the juror, “it seems to me that the jury ought to decide, as a matter of fact, whether this company is responsible for Mr. Bradley’s injuries.”

The judge responded somewhat tartly:

“We have already explained to you that, in our opinion, the plaintiff has not made out a prima facie case. If we are in error he has his remedy by appeal.” And he gathered up the papers lying in front of him as though he had made an end of the matter.

But Juror No. 7 was not yet satisfied.

“It takes time and costs money to appeal,” he said.[15] “If we could give the plaintiff a reasonable verdict now it would probably settle the case for good.”

If Judge Bosworth was impatient before, he was plainly vexed now, and he replied with some warmth:

“We cannot argue the matter with you nor permit you to argue it with us. We have considered the case carefully, and have directed a verdict for the defendant. We will not accept any other verdict. Our decision must stand until it is reversed by a higher court.”

“I meant no disrespect to your Honor,” said Juror No. 7, resuming his seat, “and I will of course obey the direction of the court; but, in my opinion, great injustice is being done.”

Some of the jurors nodded as if in affirmance of that opinion. All of them sat, with flushed faces, amazed at the temerity of their fellow-juror, wondering what the court would do or say next. The court-room was so still that the dropping of the proverbial pin could have been heard. But Judge Bosworth did not deign to reply. He turned again, sharply, to the prothonotary:

“Mr. Gaylord,” he said, “take the verdict.”

The prothonotary did as he was bidden:

“Gentlemen of the jury, hearken unto your verdict as the court has it recorded. In the case wherein John Bradley is plaintiff, and the Malleson Manufacturing Company is defendant, you find for the defendant. And so say you all?”

The jurors nodded their heads. The Bradley case was at an end.

“Mr. Duncan,” said the judge to the court crier, “you may adjourn court until ten o’clock to-morrow morning.”

The aged crier arose and droned out:

“Hear ye! Hear ye! Hear ye! The several courts are now adjourned till to-morrow morning at ten o’clock.”

It was not until then that Barry Malleson fairly recovered his breath. He and the rector had both arisen.[16] “Did you ever hear of each a thing?” he asked. “The impertinence of the fellow! To stand there and criticize the honorable judge to his face! Why, he should have been fined for contempt of court, and imprisoned as well, without benefit of clergy too—no pun intended.”

“And none charged,” replied the rector. “I’m not sure, though, but that the man was more than half right.”

“Why, Mr. Farrar!” exclaimed Barry; “my dear sir! If juries were permitted to take the law into their own hands, what would become of our republican institutions? Where would be our guarantees of law and order? The next step in advancing civilization, sir, will be the complete abolition of the entire jury system.”

“Along with the obsolete form of democratic government, I suppose,” laughed the rector.

“I am not prepared at this moment,” replied Barry, “to go to that extreme; but incidents of unblushing presumption, such as we have just witnessed, make one feel that some kind of a curb must be put on the lower and less intelligent classes, or they will become actually tyrannical.”

In the meantime the judge had left the bench. The court-room audience was shuffling noisily out. The jurors, who had just rendered their enforced verdict, found their hats, and all except No. 7 strolled down the aisle by twos and threes discussing the sudden ending of the case. The lawyer for the plaintiff gathered up his books and papers, thrust them into his green bag, and then stopped to consult with the plaintiff’s wife. Westgate and his client strolled across the bar enclosure to where Barry and the rector were standing.

“Congratulations, old boy!” said Barry to the lawyer. “You did a fine piece of work!”

“Oh,” replied Westgate carelessly, “the case was easy. The law was all on our side.” He turned to[17] the rector. “We are always glad to see you in court, Mr. Farrar.”

“The court-room is an extremely interesting place,” replied the clergyman.

“More interesting than profitable, if one is a litigant,” remarked Mr. Malleson. “I suppose, when the millennium comes, there will be no more litigation, Mr. Farrar?”

“No,” replied the clergyman. “The voice of the lawyer will no longer be heard in the land, and we shall have a thousand years of peace.”

Barry laughed, but the others only smiled.

“That’s one on me,” said Westgate. “Are you going our way, Mr. Farrar? Will you come along with us?”

“No,” replied the clergyman, “thank you! I want to stop and speak to Mrs. Bradley. A little consolation might not come amiss. She must be suffering severely from disappointment.”

“Good idea!” broke in Barry. “The woman is certainly to be pitied. No doubt she’s the victim of bad advice. I’ve a great mind to stop and talk to her myself, and explain the law to her, and the attitude of our company in the matter. It may be that she’s entirely ignorant and innocent.”